Shambles
by Kanna-Ophelia
Summary: Team Rocket have been missing for... hours... and Ash & Co. are starting to miss them. Unashamedly silly nonsense. *complete*


__

This story is dedicated to my dear friend PikaCass, in honour of her new "anyshippers" mailing list.

No sex, but femmeslash/yuri (naturally), slash/yaoi and het (rocketshipping) hints, so if any of the preceding offend you, don't read. Get a life instead…

As far as Tracey is concerned, this story is set immediately after he first joined   
Ash-tachi, even though - continuity? Who cares about continuity?

****

Shambles: A Multishipper Pokémon Fluff by Kanna-Ophelia

It had been twenty-six whole hours since anyone had tried to steal Ash's pokémon. He would have started to worry, except that his pokémon were so damn sweet, they kept distracting him.

"Togi! Togi!" Togepi wandered over the edge of a cliff, dodged Pikachu's waiting hands, and trilled with pokémon laughter as the thunder mouse nearly fell to its death trying to save him. "Prriiii!" 

No one noticed. They were all watching a small and very pretty yellow-green pokémon, who definitely shouldn't have been around at this point in the story arc, gamboling in slightly over-enthusiastic adoration around its trainer's legs.

"Aw, Chikorita, you're so cute!" Ash crowed happily. He resisted the urge to glance worriedly at the sky, looking for hot-air balloons.

"Chika! Chika!" announced the new candidate for most endearing pokémon, rubbing its head against Ash's foot, and earning a cuddle.

Pikachu and Togepi, rather concerned about having their whimsical by-play ignored by Pikachu's once-adoring trainer, stopped playing with death and glared jealously at the baby grass pokémon instead. It just wasn't fair. They should be free of Chikorita's winsome appeal at least until they reached the Johto league, and would have been if they didn't have a writer prey to such unreasonable obsessions. If she were to drag a baby Clefairy in somehow, it would be the last straw for the two pokémon.

Misty, instead of cooing over her own baby pokémon, also directed an envious stare at Chikorita. Not that she was threatened by its cuteness. She had faith in her own wide-eyed tomboy appeal, enough faith that she didn't need to gild the lily by, for example, brushing her hair occasionally. (Actually, considering that this genre demands gratuitous random Japanese words, and especially considering which girl we are talking about, perhaps a better way of putting it would be to "gild the yuri.") Nor was she in the least bit jealous of all the attention Ash was giving his new poképlaything. Misty's jealousy was directed in an entirely different direction.

"Why does Ash get all the good pokémon?" she whined to Tracey. "Jesse never tries to steal _my _pokémon. I mean, Team Rocket don't," she hastily corrected herself. 

She pouted to herself. The only reason she put up with Ash was the knowledge that the pink-haired pokémon thief could be relied on to turn up at least once a day, and that plan didn't even seem to be working anymore. She might as well go home and be a water ballet star, and let all the pretty girls perve on her in her bikini. Actually… that was a thought…

Tracey was too firmly in the grip of severe continuity discrepancy to notice Misty's abstraction. "Chikorita - me - Chikorita - me…" he muttered to himself, soulful dark eyes glazing over. He shook his head, making a real attempt to clear it. "Team Rocket… Were they those people we ran in to the other day?"

"Yes," Misty sighed. "You get used to them." _Sort of._

Tracey brightened a little. "Say, they were kind of pretty! I sketched some really nice pictures… of their talking Meowth," the budding artist finished hastily.

"James is a boy, you _do_ know that?" Misty asked carefully.

"Sure. Why do you ask?"

Misty shrugged, her cheeks reddening. "It's easy to get a bit confused sometimes…" She drifted into bad memories. "They inflate," she added, further to her new friend's confusion.

"Misty's a girl, too!" Ash helpfully pointed out. "In case you were confused - ow! Watch it, Misty! And unfortunately, hers don't inflate at - aaargh!"

"The only girl you'll ever get _will _be inflatable, Ash Ketchum!" Misty shrieked.

Tracey, who had yet to figure out the dynamic of the Pokémon Master-Baby Dyke relationship, rushed to try and separate the friends, and received a mallet to his own head. He found himself sprawled on the ground, muttering, "I _had _to draw it. It was a talking Meowth."

"Yeah? And how were you going to draw it talking, genius?" demanded Misty. "Ash, _stop looking at the sky!"_

****

R

Just as Ash was beginning to get seriously worried, a familiar voice rang out.

"Prepare for - ohmigoddess, James, you are _so _dead! Look at my hair!" It took a lot to make Jesse distressed enough to stuff up the motto, but frizzy disorder in her waist-length hair was a good beginning.

"Make it double," pouted James. "Who cares about your hair? Look at mine!"

"Stop yer whining," put in Meowth. "Dere's a little lady here whose hair is worse dan de both of youse put together."

The human members of the Rocket trio apparently noticed Ash & Co. for the first time, which somewhat begged the question of why they were reciting their motto in the first place. "It's the twerp!" James declared, his beautiful green eyes filling with tears. "And - the little butch twerp! Oh, look, Meowth, Jess," he added, clutching his partner's arm, "there's the new twerp, too!" In the emotion of the moment, the Rocket boy actually wished he'd remembered to learn their names. "Oh, we missed you guys so much!"

The aforementioned new twerp was staring wide-eyed at them. It was only the second time he'd encountered them, and the pair were even more attractive than he'd remembered. "Why is she blaming him her messy hair?" he asked, innocently.

"Dat depends," said Meowth. "Is dis de dub or de original version?"

There was a moment of group consternation. "I know how to tell!" James announced happily. "Jesse, what's my name?"

Jesse smacked him across the face with her fan. "If my name's Jesse, what would that make your name, idiot?"

Meowth sighed. "Den, James acc-i-dent-al-ly knocked Jesse over and mussed up her hair. While eating donuts."

"And then we fell asleep!" chorused his human partners, blushing and sweatdropping. 

"There's no way the original version is as dodgy as anti-dubbites makes it out to be," Misty grumbled. "Kojiro and Musashi there probably just had a tea ceremony or something." She sent a very nasty look at James.

Ash finally managed to get a word in edgeways. "Pikachu and I were so worried about you guys!"

Jesse and James stared at him for a moment, tears magically returning. "It was awful -" Jesse began. "We were lost…" 

For a moment, she seemed inclined to fling herself into James' arms and sob, but she remembered just in time that she was mad with him, for some reason lost in the translation. The Rocket girl looked wildly around for the next-best alternative.

"And then my makeup was totally ruined!" she finished, throwing herself tearfully into Misty's arms.

"Oh, poor, sweet Jesse - I mean, I wouldn't be so vain if I was a fat old hag like you!" Misty, suddenly feeling very happy, awkwardly hugged the older girl back. She wondered what would happen if she allowed her hands to wander just a little. Probably violent death… But it might be worth it.

"Misty, she's bad!" wailed Ash, forgetting that he had been the one to greet Team Rocket with raptures.

Tracey, meanwhile, was trying to force a rather pissed-off James to notice him. "Hi! I'm a pokémon artist! Want me to draw your Meowth?"

James dragged his attention off his partner for a moment, and considered Tracey. "Sure!" he said, suddenly cheerful.

"Meowth wanna picture!" 

Jesse glared at James over Misty's head. "Whaddya mean, 'sure'? He's a chubby twerp!"

"He's not chubby, Jesse," James said happily. "Just kind of solidly built. Cuddly. And he has nice eyes." Tracey seemed unsure whether to beam or look hurt.

Jesse considered. "All right, you have a point, but I want to make this entirely clear. I consider this a betrayal of our… friendship, and a cruel deception. And you're going to die for it, as soon as the tomboy lets go of my waist."

"Boys stink, don't they, Jesse?" Misty said happily, tightening her grasp.

"How can it be a deception?" James demanded, injured. "I'm doing right it in front of you!"

Jesse opened her mouth to scream with fury, then abruptly shut it. When she spoke again, it was an entirely different tone of voice, and her eyes had started to sparkle. "Do you mean that literally, Jimmy?"

"Sure! Is that okay, Tracey?"

"I - uhg - uh - yes please!" the artist gasped, going into Brock mode and trying to move into the Jesse-Misty clinch.

The girls simultaneously freed one hand each and knocked Tracey flying. "I prefer people who wear skirts!" Jesse announced.

"Well, that leaves Misty out," snickered Ash.

"-although I do make an exception in James' case," Jesse finished graciously.

"How exactly is he an exception?" asked Ash, who didn't seem to realise his life spark was in imminent danger of being snuffed out.

"Jesse's staying with _me_, aren't you, Jesse?" Misty asked plaintively.

Jesse detached herself, with some difficulty. "Sorry, honey. I'm going to make some pretty pictures with the boys. Talk to me when you grow -" her gaze lingered on Misty's rather flat sports top - "up a little, okay?"

Misty watched tragically as Tracey was borne off by Team Rocket, Meowth being very quiet so that no one would question his presence. Ash, unconcerned, went back to trying to stop Chikorita being murdered by Pikachu and Togepi, er, playing with the pokémon. He barely knew Tracey, anyway. It would have been much more upsetting if Team Rocket had "kidnapped," say, Gary…

The tomboy's eyes grew a deeper sea-blue with the weight of heavy tears. To have been so close, but so far… She had always been told that one constant of the universe was that no one could resist a baby-dyke, but her own experience was leading her to doubt that fundamental truth.

She called out her one true friend, the one person that always loved her whatever blows life dealt her, or however many blows she dealt it. "No one understands me, old friend," she sighed.

"Psy-ai-ai!" It might have been sympathy, or simply confusion. Probably the latter.

Suddenly, a clear, sweet and almost unbearable peppy voice rang out. "What a cute Psyduck! My name's Marina. Are you a water trainer, too?"

Misty looked up, and began to shoot sparks and hearts out of her eyes. Her day was definitely looking up.

****

FINIS.


End file.
